Turkey's PM: "No result from Abbas negotiations without Hamas"
Riyadh

Negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority "will not bring results", Turkey's Prime Minister has said. Mr. Rajab Tayeb Erdogan made his statement during a visit to Saudi Arabia. He said that the sole participation of the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas without any input from the Islamic resistance Movement (Hamas) in negotiations with the Zionist side will be fruitless.

The Goldstone recommendations on Israel/Palestine have been adopted by the European Parliament today on March 10 2009. The resolution was adopted with 335 votes in favour, 287 against and 43 abstentions and the following recommendations were agreed on:

1. All parties should respect human rights
2. Independent and impartial investigations within the next five months should take place within the next five months
3. The Goldstone recommendations should be implemented and monitored
4. There should be no restriction of NGO activities and the authorities should stop refraining their activities

Following the issue of an arrest warrant in December against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Gordon Brown announced last week that Britain will "legislate as soon as possible" to prevent people "motivated purely by political gesture" from seeking and obtaining arrest warrants against foreign dignitaries. He acknowledged that it is Britain's international duty to prosecute alleged war criminals, but added that the evidential basis on which arrest warrants can be allowed should be tougher and the right to prosecute should cover a narrower range of crimes falling under universal jurisdiction and be left to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alone. Ironically, it is Brown himself who has politicised the process by reducing what is a longstanding common law right to the discretion of the CPS.

EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton has said she plans to visit Gaza on her Middle East trip next week, putting Israeli authorities in an awkward position.

"I have asked to go to Gaza, we'll see what happens," she told press at an informal EU ministers' meeting in Cordoba, Spain, over the weekend, according to Reuters. "We are providing a huge amount of aid into Gaza and I'm very interested to make sure that we are seeing the benefits of that aid going in."

Ms Ashton is to travel to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan on 17 March on her first official journey to the region.